Design
details:*The Northern Ireland coin is quite hard to tell apart from the England
coin! look closely at the middle of the flag and you can see a slight
bump!

From 25 July to 4 August 2002 the city of Manchester played host to the
Commonwealth Games. In the biggest competition in the seventy-two-year
history of the games some of the world’s greatest athletes competed in
fourteen individual sports and three team sports over ten spectacular days
of sporting and cultural activity. To mark the celebration of sporting
excellence, The Royal Mint issued a commemorative two-pound coin. Matthew
Bonaccorsi’s reverse design, the winning entry in a competition,
represents celebration, victory and sportsmanship. It depicts a moving
figure holding aloft a banner, the top of which is divided into lines
symbolising the lanes of a swimming pool. The design is completed with the
edge inscription SPIRIT OF FRIENDSHIP. MANCHESTER 2002. Four versions of
the coin have been produced, one for each of the participating teams from
the United Kingdom and distinguished by a cameo version of their
respective flags.